The End
by Plesiosaur
Summary: Request fic, Bubbline. Nothing lasts forever, not even immortality. Bonnie writes one last letter to Marceline while she waits for the end.


**A short little request fic from DramaticFan, short because I'm on vacation but I couldn't get this idea out of my head so I had to write it. I cried writing this, that's how much of a silly emotional fangirl I am. Urgh, I'm trash. Anyway, I hope this is what you had in mind?**

 **There's gonna be a new chapter of 40 Weeks soon, I promise! I've just been really busy destressing and getting pretty spectacularly sunburned and eating delicious food and hanging with my family. It's been so long since I had a break.**

 **Content Warning: character death, so many feels.**

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 _My dear sweet wife,_

 _Change wasn't ever something I was good at dealing with, but then you've always known that. You even felt the same, once upon a time. But nothing lasts forever, I don't know why I ever expected that it would. And one day you came to me and told me that you wanted to change, you never did really tell me why. Was it because of me? Because of something I did or didn't do? Perhaps you'd realized that having all the time in the world together meant that there would never be any progression, no rush to do anything or move forwards with anything. Or maybe you just got sick of watching everyone you knew age and die and leave you behind, over and over as though you hadn't already been abandoned enough times in your life. I could see in your eyes that every death was as heartbreaking for you as the first because no matter how often it happened you never got used to losing people. I can understand that last one, better than ever now. I'm still not used to you not being here, still expect to hear you singing in the bathroom or practicing your bass at odd hours of the night. I think that's the hardest part, living with silence now where I was used to having your music._

 _To say that the first time you tried to become mortal didn't work out is something of an understatement, but with centuries of hindsight now I can see that you needed to confront the Vampire King and your past before you could move on. More than anything I needed to have that terror of losing you to discover exactly how much you meant to me, how little had changed in my feelings for you. It was so easy to pretend we were somewhere good as just friends until you were unconscious in my arms, drawing what I thought could be your last breath. And I knew then that I'd tear the world apart for you if that's what needed to happen. I'd kill for you, die for you. Wait for you, because you needed time and I had all the time in the world to give you. And for a while afterwards you were happy to be a vampire with recent mortal memories, until I changed things, yet again. It was completely my fault. I thought I could handle patience and waiting but it was torture, I knew then how much it must have torn you apart to wait all those years for me to make a decision, never knowing if I even still cared for you at all. But in the end I did make a decision. In the end it was too hard to stay away, too hard to deny that you drew me like a magnetic field. I'm the one who came to you, I'm the one who slid my hands through your hair and told you I'd never stopped loving you, wanting you, dreaming about your lips and your hands and the slide of your fangs against my flesh. And I kissed you and I stayed all night rediscovering the feel of your body loving mine. I don't regret it for one damn second. I still need you and love you just as fiercely now as I did that night. I never stopped craving the silk of your skin or sudden arch of your back up into me like I was the only thing in your world, not for all the years we were apart and not even when the silver finally overwhelmed the black in your hair and your hands lost the strength to push the strings down. I loved you just as deeply as ever._

 _Watching you become mortal again was bittersweet. I know why it happened when it did. We'd both known Finn from being a boy and giving the eulogy the day we finally lowered him into the ground cost you something that I don't think you ever really got back. Knowing he'd aged and grown and lived then done something you never had and died and was going on to the next great adventure without you, seeing a whole life played out that you could touch and taste but never truly experience, that was what got you thinking. Immortal doesn't mean without death. It means without natural death, peaceful death. Without age. And perhaps you wanted what he'd had, to pass away peacefully in your sleep surrounded by your loved ones. I know it hurt to say goodbye to Finn but I know that wherever he ended up the two of you are probably laughing over centuries old jokes by now, beat boxing and singing together, pranking Jake, wishing I was there too. We were always a gang of four, it hurts more than I can tell you to be left alone. So you came home after his funeral and you asked me a second time, to begin the procedure. We were more careful that time, much more careful. But it was still dangerous and difficult. I was so scared the whole time that I might lose you. We removed your vampire essence and isolated it, destroyed it permanently. And you were free. Watching you walk out into the sunrise, knowing you were finally the person you always wanted to be without the immortality that you never asked for, it was wonderful. Watching you rediscover simple pleasures like chewing food, sunbathing, feeling warm and cold, it almost made me forget that those things came at the price of one day losing you. You never knew how hard it was for me to be forever eighteen and see you grow, I was careful to always hide it from you. And seeing what you became filled me with a kind of serene pride that I'd given you that opportunity. Watching you mature and finally put the demons of your past to rest made it worth all the heartbreak and quiet grief over your eventual loss. I still think that, even as I sit by the marble headstone with your name on it and write this._

 _I miss you. 'Miss' doesn't seem like a strong enough word for it though. Every fibre of my being aches for you, craves to be close to you. Every breath is pain because I'm apart from you, every second feels like a lifetime. I'm getting melodramatic in my old age, my love. Because I know you didn't think I needed to do it but I want to tell you that the serum worked, I managed to use science to overcome my own immortality and now I'm finally old. Living without you isn't really living and you know science was my first love, it was always just a matter of time before I created what I wanted. You told me the same thing the day they placed Penelope in your arms, told me she had your skin and my hair and that maybe science wasn't as useless as you'd always thought if we could use it to create the most perfect daughter that anyone had ever had. Our wonderful girl, I'm prouder of her than ever. She looks so much like you, she has your axe now and the old hat you promised Finn you'd pass on to the next great hero. I know she's going to do incredible things. Of course she will, she's your daughter._

 _You once told me that hell is repetition. And you were right. Every day I wake up alone, every day I sit next to the empty throne that you used to occupy. I watch the world change around me and I feel disconnected from it, apart and separate. When did I stop living and simply exist? Perhaps it was the day I knew that there was no treatment that could stop the slow progression of your disease, that you would finally get your wish and have a normal, mortal death. I never forget the words you spoke to me, that last night. No matter how much you aged your voice was always beautiful, always like silk against soft skin._

 _"Bon, I miss the starlight. Can we go flying?"_

 _You couldn't even walk by that point, but I could see what it was. Your dying wish. So I wrapped you in the blankets and carried you out to the balcony, whistled for one of our eagles. You'd grown so thin, love. You barely weighed more than a child. But when your eyes were lit by the moon I could see you exactly as you were on our wedding day, see the woman I'd vowed to love until my dying breath. I may not have kept all of my promises over the centuries but I kept that one. I love you still, so much more than I can express in just words. And when your breathing slowed and the light finally dimmed in those magnificent eyes I held you close and whispered to you that I would follow, I'd find you again. That you were my whole world. If I'd had to chose a way for you to pass then wrapped securely in my arms beneath the stars would have been it; the last gift I could give you. I gently closed your eyelids and bid you one final goodnight as your heart stilled once again in your chest. I hope the last thing you felt was the gentle kiss I placed on your lips. I held back my tears until I was home again, in the bed that we'd shared for so long. When they finally did come they were a flood, a tsunami without end. I've spent the last year crying myself to sleep, feeling your arms around me in my dreams and then waking cold and alone. I spent so long just looking at your things, the boots you loved and your favourite shirt. How could those things still have your scent, your shape in them, when you were gone from the world? It made no sense to me._

 _Tonight is the last night I sleep alone, love. The serum worked better than I'd planned, I've aged far past a natural lifespan just in the year since we parted. And it seems fitting that it should be tonight, exactly a year since I lost you. I know I won't see another sunrise. I can feel my breath catching in my lungs, my heart flutter feebly to keep me alive. Soon, love. I just want to finish this letter to you and then my life will be complete, I can go onto the next adventure with you. It's getting darker; my final goodnight approaches. I just hope you have time to finish reading this before I'm with you, to save me the embarrassment of having you read sections of it aloud to me._

 _I'll see you very soon._

 _With all the love a woman's heart can give,_

 _Bonnie xxx_

It was getting darker, she'd been right about that. And colder too, she was glad she'd thought to bring the blanket. A cemetery at night was not a hospitable place and Bonnie didn't want to spend her last mortal hours in discomfort. She closed her eyes and leaned her head wearily against the grave marker. Soon.

"Didn't think you could sneak away without saying a proper goodbye, did you?"

For one second she thought perhaps death had already taken her; that voice was so achingly familiar and caused such a sharp surge of longing through her chest. But she opened her eyes and it wasn't quite the face she'd expected to see looking back at her.

"Penelope, oh love, what are you doing out here in the middle of the night?"

"Saying goodbye to my mother who has apparently decided to come sit by my other mother's grave to die. I found the note you left me, I didn't want you to sneak away like that."

Grod, she looked so much like Marcy in the moonlight. So much like her mother when they'd first met.

"I just can't stay, love. You understand don't you? Nothing lasts forever, not even me."

Penelope nodded, reluctantly and without her usual smile but a nod nevertheless.

"I know. When Mom died it took part of you, too. The dangers of being so tied up in someone that you don't know where you end and they begin. And I know you have to pass on, too. I understand that, at least in my head. But my heart still aches knowing that you're leaving. I'm gonna miss you, Mama."

"I'll miss you too, darling. But it's not goodbye. It's just, see you later. Nothing lasts forever. And the people we love never really leave us, they're too much a part of our souls to ever disappear. I'm leaving the best parts of myself behind, in you." Bonnie murmured, heaving herself slowly to her feet.

"Come here." Penny replied quietly, holding her arms open for a hug just like she had every night as a child when she was tucked into bed. They hugged in the moonlight, one frail old woman and her daughter, surrounded by the graves of the dearly departed.

"I love you, Penelope."

"I love you too, Mama. Tell Mom I love her when you see her."

"I will. Now get going, the cemetery is no place for the living."

Bonnie watched her daughter turn and walk away for the last time. The moonlight glinted on the silvered edges of the ancient axe strapped to her back and turned her dark fuchsia hair an almost midnight black. It was easy to see which of her mothers she took after the most, it filled Bonnie's heart with a nameless emotion at what a strong, wonderful woman they'd raised together. She'd sat back down, hadn't she? Perhaps? Suddenly she wasn't sure of the exact angle she was watching the scene from, it was almost as though she was floating. And then there were warm and wonderfully familiar arms around her waist and a voice she'd ached for in her ear.

"I'm so proud of us as parents, babe. Proud of you too, I don't think I'd have made it a whole year if it'd been the other way around. Do you feel like dancing? I feel like sharing a dance with my wife."

"I've missed you every second of every day since you left." Bonnie replied quietly. "I've cried for you, ached for you, dreamed of you. And now here you are. Does this mean I'm dead?"

She turned in those arms and looked into the face she'd been missing for the whole year. Marceline looked back at her, smiling gently and just as smooth and young as she had been for the first thousand years of their lives together.

"I guess so. There's this slumped old shape on my grave, all wrinkly and pale, it isn't moving or breathing anymore. I guess its heart just gave up. But it isn't my wife, she's right here with me now. Just as lovely and pink as always. You wanna dance?"

Yes, Bonnie decided, she did want to dance. So much. They swayed slowly together in the moonlight, arms around each other and cheeks pressed together, warm and safe and so in love. No more aching, longing, no more pain. Just each other.

"Hey, the guys are waiting for us. Jake's planned a party, everyone's there. Peps and Cinnamon Bun, Lady and the pupsters. Are you ready?" Marcy asked quietly.

"Yeah, I'm so ready. Let's go." Bonnie replied happily. She took one last look at the mortal world below her, already beginning to grow faint and distant, before taking her wife's hand and stepping away to the next adventure together. The end.


End file.
